


Born on the Bayou

by Dan_Francisco



Series: RWBY in the Cold War [7]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cold War, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, One Shot, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:11:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: What if Ruby Rose grew up with her grandparents instead of with Taiyang?





	Born on the Bayou

Ruby Rose didn’t think life could get any better.

 

She woke up to the sound of her radio softly playing _Gimme Shelter_ by The Rolling Stones, about halfway through the song by her guess. Her room was the same as it always was, filled with photographs she had taken over the years, and with the old posters her mom had kept. It’d be a hot day, given crocodile season was starting soon. _God,_ just the idea of the season starting was making Ruby giddy.

 

Already, she heard the sound of breakfast being cooked, and slowly the smell of peppers, onions, and garlic filled her nose. Ruby smiled wide as she got dressed, more than ready to chow down on gramma’s grillades and grits. She always wondered if mom would make breakfast the same way, or if she had some new way of cooking. At 22, Ruby had learned everything about cooking from gramma, more than able to feed the local church and any man she came across. Gramma always said Ruby’s baking was second to none, and maybe even better than Ruby’s mom’s had been at her age.

 

But, time for baking cookies and cakes would come later. She’d have to help grampa with setting lines for the gator season after breakfast. Building the lines themselves wasn’t hard, but setting them was an all-day affair that grampa had passed down to her since she was twelve. She was surprised when she first learned how to do it – every line demanded precision, not just in knowing where to place it, but making sure it wasn’t too close to other lines, in a place the gators would want to go, or just generally up enough for them to reach.

 

“Good morning, gramma!” Ruby said as she entered the tiny kitchen, checking on the grits. She knew gramma would never let them boil over, but it was fun to check them anyway.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Gramma said, smiling. Another stir of the pan gave off another wave of the ingredients and herbs she had used to make grillades. It looked like it was close to ready.

“Good morning grampa!”

“Morning,” he said. Grampa was already at the table, reading through the morning paper, but his usual cup of coffee wasn’t there.

Ruby looked over the table, puzzled. Grampa _always_ drank coffee in the morning. “Grampa,” she asked, concerned. “Did you drink your coffee fast today?”

“Nope,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the paper. “No coffee.”

 

“Huh? I thought we got some yesterday-”

“I mean I ain’t drinking coffee today,” Grampa said.

Ruby tilted her head, even more confused than before. It just didn’t make sense. Grampa _always_ had coffee. Why would he just stop drinking it? Before she could ask, gramma had plated up breakfast, slowly sliding food over to grampa and then putting down a plate for herself. Ruby’s food came not long after, with grampa putting down the paper long enough to say a prayer to the Maidens before they could start eating. By happenstance, Ruby looked up at the pictures on the wall, primarily the ones of mom in Vietnam. They were pictures she had seen a million times, but…something was different about them today.

 

She had never really noticed it before, but there had been someone else in that picture. Mom’s picture had clearly been taken with another person, she could see the barrel of their gun just barely poking out from the side of the frame. Ruby had heard plenty of stories from gramma and grampa, but they were short, fleeting. Almost always when she asked about her mom, gramma would go quiet, and grampa always paused before talking about her. According to grampa, mom had been picked up by an Army recruiter one day and offered a full ride to a place called Beacon. There, she learned how to be an officer and then went to Vietnam, where she was killed somewhere.

 

Thankfully, mom was never far from home – she had been taken to Chalmette National Cemetery to be buried, and they made sure to travel to her gravestone every so often. Ruby had wondered how much of her mom she was really like. Gramma said she and Summer were almost the same person, if not in personality just by the fact they shared the same eyes and looked so similar. Ruby saw it in the mirror almost every day, seeing the similarities between her and mom.

 

The question of her dad didn’t often come up, but grampa said that he had felt he wasn’t fit to raise Ruby after the war, and gave her up for him and gramma to raise. Looking back, she figured it was good. After all, if she hadn’t been raised here in Cocodrie, treading the same path her mom had, would she ever remember her?

 

Of course, gramma and grampa strongly vetoed from the beginning any ideas of Ruby joining the military. As she finished breakfast, she couldn’t help but remember the day she had first talked to the Marine Corps recruiter at high school. Ruby had come home with an information packet the recruiter had given her, and showed it to grampa.

 

That was the same day she had seen that, just like anyone else, grampa could be full of rage.

 

It had scared her, honestly, when he flew off the handle at the mere mention of the USMC. Grampa didn’t think whether he was speaking Louisiana French or English, swapping between the two without a second thought as he demanded to know why Ruby was being such a fool. “Summer went and joined the Army, and look what happened to her,” grampa had said loudly. “So long as you’re under _my_ roof, you’re not joining the military!”

Grampa and gramma had made her promise, swear on the Maidens that she would never join the military. A terrified, sobbing Ruby made the promise, a vow she had upheld even to this day. And so, Ruby had started looking for something else to do with her life. Gator hunting only lasted for a month, and grampa always warned her that it might not be sustainable for long. He had cautioned her the government might one day up and decide not to let folk hunt gator anymore like they had back in the early 60s, a prospect he feared.

 

As silverware clattered against bowls and plates, grampa cleared his throat. “Ruby, your gramma and I are gonna be heading into town after breakfast. Gotta get more gas for the boat.”

“Okay!” she said, smiling as she was brought out of her thoughts. “You don’t want me to come, too?”

Grampa shook his head. “Got some other things to take care of, too. Boring old folk stuff.”

“Alright. Well, I hope y’all have fun!”

 

Ruby could see grampa pause, almost as if he wanted to say something, but he went back to eating as if nothing was wrong. Maybe it was nothing. But, the fact he wasn’t drinking coffee still struck her as odd. Either way, she finished her breakfast first, rinsing off her plate and heading to the spare bedroom, about to get started on making some lines for later.

 

Gramma and grampa called out that they were leaving, and Ruby became absorbed in making the lines. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard the doorbell ring. Weird. If it was a neighbor or family friend, they would’ve come right in. Maybe it was Rick? But why would he ring the doorbell? Ruby headed to the front door to investigate.

 

“Hello?” she asked, opening the door. In front of her, she saw a woman clad in camouflage, her black boots shining through the flecks of dirt that had gotten on the toes. Concealing her eyes was a pair of massive sunglasses, her face flanked by long blonde hair that had been patted down by a motorcycle helmet.

The woman raised her glasses up, revealing intense lilac eyes. “Hi, does anyone named Ruby Rose live here?”

“Well, yeah,” Ruby said, smiling. “That’s me.”

The woman smiled back softly. “My name’s Yang Xiao Long. I’m your sister.”


End file.
